As months passed the poet became again enveloped in abstraction, until at last his mind seemed to be concentrated on some definite purpose, of which the existence was made evident by an unusual taciturnity and set expression, while the purpose itself remained a mystery.
It had become the custom of Marlowe to absent himself daily from the town, and to pursue his solitary way, morning after morning, to a northeastern promontory that stretched out into the sea from an adjacent island. On these walks he was always, by apparent intention, alone. Standing on the shore, with face turned northward and eyes intent on scanning the wide horizon, his graceful figure was ever solitary, his reflections ever with no response save from his inward self. Thus for months, without the exception of a single day, he went to the promontory, until his patience was rewarded by the sight of that which he had so long awaited. An instinct, a premonition, an inward certainty, call it what he would, had told him that his determination must find an opportunity at last. Therefore, when the chance to work his will finally offered itself, he regarded it with small surprise. He called himself, not without a certain vain though mournful loftiness, the agent of Destiny; hence, when Destiny came to claim self-sacrifice at his hands, he met it with familiar greeting.
Starting out to welcome that which he termed “Incarnate Fate,” he made his way farther north, and having finally, as he told himself, “bound the Parcæ with their own thread,” returned to Croatan.
It was all a mystical thrall, dominant and positive, yet vaguely transcendental, as it is here described. The actual was resolved instantly to the poetical in his mind, and in this, the beginning of the final act of his life’s drama, he became that astral dreamer and etherealist whom a few, by the perceptive comprehension of his poetry, have recognized and understood.
On re-entering the town, Marlowe sought Eleanor Dare. She was sitting near the threshold of her door with Virginia, who, slight, pale, and more visionary than real, watched him with a curious eagerness and joy as he approached; for Christopher and the Indian youth were, with the exception of her mother, the sole favorites of her child heart. To her father Virginia showed a peculiar devotion, but this was often broken by moments of angry rebellion, while usually with Eleanor, and always with Manteo’s son, she seemed perfectly in accord.
“Mistress Dare, I would speak to you now beyond the town, where no interruption can break in upon my sorrow.”
Before Eleanor could reply, the child, looking up into Marlowe’s face, asked, half wistfully, “What is sorrow?”
The poet gazed down at her and smoothed her hair. “That is a secret,” he answered, kindly.
“Whose secret?” she demanded, pouting. “My mother’s?”